If you're interested in having this conversation, I'm happy to address each point:
I also can't relate to anybody that will follow through said feelings.
That position makes much more sense, because it isn't inconsistent with the rest of what you said, initially. I think the main difference between guys who can't or can't relate to following through with feelings for promiscuous women -- or for women with a promiscuous past -- is simply whether or not female sexual liberation and/or promiscuity triggers his male jealousy and/or insecurity, because that's a natural tendency to which males have evolved and because it's been greatly reinforced by social learning and the predominance of the gender-based double standard about sexual morality. Not every man buys into that and/or is intimidated or turned off by her sexuality.
wouldn't exactly count "infatuation" as clicking. In my mind, clicking is a bit more reciprocal? Would a cute waitress being nice to me count as "clicking" or is it just good service/part of the illusion.
Infatuation often is one-sided and, especially for men, is largely a function of physical attraction and nothing more. You've described experiencing that for sexworkers, so you already know that's something that can definitely happen; and when actual sex is involved, it's much more powerful than when it's just based on unconsummated admiration. Yes, I'd define "clicking" as requiring mutuality, but sometimes people are shitty judges of how mutual it is, such as where one person thinks a (regular) date went great and only finds out by asking for the second date (or waiting for that call) that it wasn't really all that mutual. Clicking, for me, requires a substantial conversational component and it can definitely happen with sexworkers. However, I also think it's possible to click quite intensely with someone purely based on mutual attraction and (especially) sexual chemistry. I'm not talking specifically about sexworkers, but also about situations where two people hook up and share an intense mutual desire to be together, notwithstanding the fact that there's a language barrier. Obviously, they can't share their complex thoughts and values nonverbally, but that kind of thing has happened many times, such as when foreign-deployed soldiers and local women fall in love first, and only learn one another's language afterwards.
As a thought experiment, imagine that you and a gorgeous woman found yourselves stranded alone on an island for a year before being rescued. Imagine that you have passionate sex, sleep in one another's arms for a year, and establish a living routine, complete with gestures of kindness, mutual concern, consideration, appreciation, and affection, but without a common language. Even without being able to communicate verbally very well, I think you could very easily come to love one another very genuinely (first) and make the effort to learn languages afterwards. This isn't meant to describe anything that happens with a sexworker, but it simply illustrates that mutual love doesn't necessarily require as much verbal communication as you might assume.
And with regards to my "conscious decision to keep distance from my regulars"....I perceive it as a nipping it in the bud type of situation (but I guess chicken v egg argument here).
Yes, that would definitely be nipping it in the bud, precisely because you realize that it's certainly possible to have the same reactions as pertain to emotions and attachment that typically occur between men and women who meet in more traditional ways, even if you first meet for transactional sex. Chickens and eggs doesn't really apply, because that's about not being able to tell which of two causally-dependent things comes first, and I don't think any guy hasn't experienced (both) intense infatuation before knowing anything about a woman, as well as the more gradual development of emotional attachment only after getting to know someone, first. It can happen in either order as well as simultaneously, and presents no such chicken-or-egg philosophical paradox.
I just assume everything they say/do is part of the illusion so I will say that the fact one can click beyond that first level of superficiality/fakeness is hard to relate to.
If someone has the specific intention of faking the mutuality component of what we're referring to as "clicking," then yes, it can be very convincing. Some providers are very good at doing this, just as are many men who purposely do the same on first dates with women they just want to fuck. That doesn't necesarily mean either that providers and clients never genuinely click mutually or that every guy who lays on the charm on a first (traditional) date is only interested in her pussy. If you think you might be clicking with a provider, you can choose not to act on it, or even to limit or stop seeing her, if that's what you prefer. If you're open to following through on it, there's a very simple test that's pretty reliable: ask her if she'd like to meet you for lunch or dinner (or whatever) while making clear that it's because you'd like to get know her better and that there are no sexual expectations. If she says yes and doesn't ask for compensation, that's a pretty reliable indicator that the potential interest is mutual.
